


Chosen One

by Merfilly



Series: Growing Up Jedi [8]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Legends - All Media Types, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-25
Updated: 2016-10-25
Packaged: 2018-08-24 15:10:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,080
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8376838
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Merfilly/pseuds/Merfilly
Summary: Mace and Mara discuss a future.





	

The walk took them out of the busy salle and down a hallway to one of the meditation rooms, where Mace took a seat on one pillow, indicating the other for her.

"For who is your mother, I must say I am impressed with the walk being taken in silence," Mace said. He then raised a finger to forestall any negative rejoinder. "I respect Knight Tano. She has proven time and again that she has the essential heart of a Jedi in how she lives her life. I also recognize that she is an energetic and ebullient person. I see more of your father in how you carry yourself, always observing and then measuring what you give out to the world around you."

Mara took that for the fair reasoning it was and nodded. She did not do more than settle more firmly on her pillow, though, even as that proved his point.

Mace held his hand out toward her actual lightsaber, an eyebrow raising. "May I?"

That made Mara tense, but she couldn't very well deny a Master as revered as Master Windu. She held it out, and he inspected the hilt carefully, giving away none of his thoughts on the matter. Angling it safely away, he ignited the weapon, watching as the purple blade escaped. Her tension refused to die away as he surveyed it a long moment, before shutting it off and handing it back.

"Initiate Marek informed Knight Ashla that he failed to build his hilt properly, and the lightsaber was not functional for his needs. Did you know that?"

She shook her head as she put the hilt on her hip again. "No, Master. He never mentioned it."

"He has chosen to proceed with a synthetic crystal of his own making. Because he hopes to have more control over it that way. It was not that his lightsaber failed, but it produced a color not typical to a Jedi in the Light." Mace met her eyes. "Unfortunately for him, and I quite understand his choice to reject it, the blade was red."

"Why are you telling me this, Master?" Mara said, just barely shifting to title instead of the more military 'sir' that kept trying to slip out. "Is this not his own private concern?"

"In most cases, Initiate Tano, I would agree. However, you are shaping up as the buttress of your age group. The one they trust, who doesn't talk out of turn, who observes and makes it a point to find out the truth.

"Yes, I have been observing you since I returned this time. I believe you, like myself, wish to avoid anything that might cross from the possible future you and your agemates saw into your own future." Mace paused, then looked pointedly at the lightsaber. "Which is why you don't practice with that, yet you still carry it. Is it your personal warning, or something else?"

"I don't know yet." Mara decided honesty was going to be more in her favor than half-answers. "I did look into it," she added. "And… the common lore states that lightsabers tinged toward shades of purple are carried by those who have stepped too close to the Dark Side." She made herself meet his eyes, and he nodded to encourage her to speak further. "In the visions, I don't think I just stepped close to the Dark Side. I think I was in the Dark Side, and I came away from it. Just like Luke's lightsaber wound up the green of his older self in the vision, mine is the color I saw most vividly as an adult."

It was not, thankfully, the color of the one she had seen herself kill Luke with. That, she would probably have done as Galen had, and not used it at all.

Mace reached and pulled his own lightsaber out, handing it over. She took it for a moment, just feeling its resonance in the Force, before handing it back.

"People have talked about my lightsaber in the past," Mace told her after putting it away. "Ones too young to have known me as a young Jedi. They have outright stated and whispered where they thought I would not hear that it is a mark of why I am, as some have said, a hard man to get along with.

"They're not wrong. I could probably rebuild a lightsaber and not cast the crystal toward purple, if I wished it. But the few times I have replaced mine, I imbue the crystal with the fullness of who I am… and it is purple when it is whole. However, I earned that color through my temper, stubbornness, and trials.

"Are you willing to carry yours, actually use it, when the only mark on you is from a vision of a life you have not lived?"

Mara took a deep breath, closing her eyes. She centered, reaching for the feel of the lightsaber she carried. She considered herself firmly a child of Light, even though she was no stranger to death, conflict, and even war, given what her parents still did in service to the Republic. Yet the vision had come to her for a reason, and it had stayed strongly on her as she nurtured her crystal in the Force. She had crafted the lightsaber in a trance-like state. 

Was there a reason to reject it?

She opened her eyes and looked at the Master. "I will carry and use it. I do not know why I saw that other future. There is a warning in it, I am certain. And the lightsaber is a visible reminder of that, so I am on guard as I learn my path."

Mace nodded once, slowly. "Your mother changed history once, on the strength of a vision she received. Perhaps you have been warned, so that you can hold up the legacy she brought to us." His words were kind, even gentle, before he reached out and rested a hand on her shoulder. "Initiate Tano, will you walk as my Padawan?" he asked, in more formal tones.

She bowed her head to him. "I accept, Master Windu." When she looked up, though, there was a hint of a smile on her lips. "I did not expect this."

"I didn't either, before that day on Ilum," he admitted. "Thank you, Padawan. Perhaps together, the old and the new will find a way to protect the middle road."

"I hope so, Master."


End file.
